


Remember What We Were?

by zlwrites



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Reincarnation, part of Kenhina week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2462828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zlwrites/pseuds/zlwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a vampire hunter, Kenma's life had a bunch of unnecessary excitement, but with a terrifying recurring dream and an annoying vampire, his life just became way more complicated than he really wanted it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Kenhina week on Tumblr, specifically day 5 and it being October, I had to do some-sort of scary AU (well not scary but you get the idea).  
> Also not much vampire stuff going on this chapter, but give it a chapter

_He saw him brace himself for the shot headed his way. He won’t let him be hit, it will kill him. He’s innocent, he’s innocent, he’s done nothing wrong. He must save him. Run, push…bang, pain, blood, a lot of blood. He’s falling and everything is blurry. He sees a face, twisted with pain. He hears screaming…he can barely hear the voice._

_“Why…Te-t..su?” is all he can make out. He can’t make a full sentence, but he manages_

_“Save…you…”. The screaming is more frantic he hears more words._

_“I can save you…Te…t..u let…me!” is what he hears. Quick movement, sharp pain in his neck…but it’s completely gone next moment. They are gone, but still screaming. He hears a name being screamed out. “TETSUROO!”_

          Instantly Kenma jolts awake, drenched in sweat. Even though this dream has happened at least four times this week, it still screws him up. He sits up and looks over at the clock on his desk, about 5 something is what he can make out. Well, it’s only been approximately an hour since he came home from a particularly difficult job. He actually had to run and go in for the kill of the vampire he and his partner Kuroo were after. Usually he just sits back and watches while everyone else does the physical stuff. Sniping from long distances was his trade and doing anything other than that was super uncomfortable for him. As usual, Kuroo let the target slip past him and get in a position where Kenma couldn’t take a shot, so he ended up having to pin down the fleeing blood-sucker. Being the non-athletic and just overall hater of physical activity he was, the only thing Kenma was only able to do was wound the monster. He was still angry over the failure; however that wasn’t the only thing bothering him. Maybe this was him projecting his screwed up thoughts into reality, but for a brief second, Kenma swore that the vampire resembled the other person in his dream. He really could never remember faces and stuff from the dream, everytime he woke up all of the images would be hazy and he would just recall small details, like orange and red…and sometimes he could smell the blood. If it was a dream, could you actually smell things in them Kenma wondered. He gave up once again trying to think out the dream and sat up in his small twin bed. He shook his head trying to fully wake himself up, there was really no point trying to fall back asleep, and picked up his PSP from the nightstand. Some mindless games would help clear the foggy clouds that engulfed his head.

           About noon the same day is when he finally began to feel the extreme weariness of pulling an unintentional all-nighter. To make matters worse, he and Kuroo would decide the day before he had his 2 hour lecture class to go on a freaking hunt. He was half awake and stumbling around the campus grounds to get to the hellish course when he bumped into a very hard object, and only when he had registered that he had fallen on his butt did Kenma realized that it was a person he bumped into.

“Oops! I’m sorry here let me help you up!” the other student said completely flustered.

        Kenma was so out of it, he just took the stranger’s hand and could care less about the accident what-so-ever. He just let himself be lifted up by the person and only felt aware of what was going on when he felt the other guy’s hand linger a bit too long for his liking. As if he knew he had done something odd, the student jerked his hand away, but kept his gaze on Kenma. Even though he was somewhat delirious from running on literally an hour of sleep, the look this stranger was giving him really made him uncomfortable. His eyes had a far away glaze over them like he was remembering Kenma from forever ago, like he had known him since he was young and he looked like he was almost begging him to remember his face. Suddenly very self-conscious, Kenma mumbled a small thanks and almost ran from the other person not wanting to look back. When he got to his class, he couldn’t concentrate on what the professor was going on about. The blurry pieces from his dream came into his mind and a sharp pain in the side of his neck made him jump. That was new…and highly alarming. In the nights Kenma had had the recurring dream; it was just that, a dream. Only linger side-effects were the weird anxious feelings he got about it and those lasted for about an hour or so after he woke up, but now he was feeling the pain from it too? As much as he really didn’t want to, he needed to talk about this with someone, and the only person who would understand for the most part, was his annoying hunting partner, and older cousin, Kuroo.

       He still was pretty upset with Kuroo for the whole screw up in missing the vampire, and he being loud while Kenma had a headache from his long day wasn’t making him want to forgive him anytime soon. Still, not wanting whatever this dream thing was get too far out of hand, he bit his tongue and kept the plethora of sharp remarks to himself.

       “Ok but seriously it was there and it just disappeared! I mean I know vampires can move really fast but there was no way it could have gotten around me.” Kuroo said in his defense.

       “Whatever…not why I called you over though…” Kenma whispered, trying to think of a good way to start the conversation off. It was way more difficult than he thought.

        “You look like hell though, I know it was a late night, but aren’t you use to that?” he questioned, “Or…is it something else eating you?” Kuroo off-handedly mentioned. Kenma was somewhat grateful that he could read him so well.

         “Kinda, for the last few days…I’ve been having this really freaky dream, or at least I think it’s a dream…” the uncertainty in his voice very apparent.

         “What do you mean ‘think’? Is it not a dream?”

          “I thought it was just a dream, but now I can sometimes feel the stuff that happened in the dream. I don’t know.” He really felt lost on how to explain it to him. One thing he didn’t expect to hear was chuckling. His head snapped up to look at Kuroo who was about to explode from laughing.

          “I can’t help you with those kinds of dreams Kenma!” he practically barked out.

            Wait…what the hell had he meant by that? Kenma’s face darkened to crimson as he realized what his confession sounded like. He picked up the nearest thing he could find, which was a half empty bottle of water and chucked it a Kuroo on the other side of the dorm.

          “I’m not some 13 year kid Kuroo you asshole! That’s not what I mean!” he screamed as he covered his face in embarrassment. Leave it to Kuroo to miss the point entirely.

          “I’m just messing with you.” He said rubbing the spot on his leg where the bottle landed. Kenma didn’t believe that for a second, but he tried his best to explain the dream after the red in his cheeks went away.

           “I can’t remember really where it starts…but this one part really sticks out to me. I’m standing next to some other person and I feel like I’ve known them forever and they’re about to get shot…I think, so I push them out of the way and I get hit with the bullet right here",he pointed to right above his heart and he almost feels it twinge a bit as he recalls the dream,” and I fall down. It starts getting hazy from here because my vision is fading in and out and I can’t hear much besides screaming. I felt like I’m getting colder and the other person is holding me and saying a bunch of stuff I don’t understand, but I catch one part and it sort of sounds like they say they can save me?” he paused and grabbed the side of his neck as he continued to the next part.

           “…I’m not sure but I think…I think they may have bit me or something…” At this Kuroo sits up with a very alarmed expression. Kenma could tell he wanted to jump in and ask a ton of questions, but he held them in as he went on.

           “But next thing I knew the other person was being dragged away by someone…and they scream out a name…I think it was mine, but for some reason it doesn’t fit.” He knew why. The voice screamed out Tetsuroo and that wasn’t his name. In fact it was the name of the other person in the room listening to his strange dream. Why would he have a dream about something like this and feel it if it was from another person’s point of view? Everything about this was a stupid situation that he was not prepared to deal with.

           “Anyway…I don’t know why, but today I’ve started to feel stuff from the dream, like my neck hurt where I got bit.”

           “Woah…that’s pretty intense.” Kuroo, for once, seemed to be at a loss for words. Kenma had a tiny relief being able to explain it to someone, but the fog came creeping into his mind again distracting him from hearing Kuroo say something.

           “What?”

           “Well, while you were spaced out, I said maybe it’s not a dream at all.”

            “…Well if it’s not a dream, then…?” he couldn’t follow him.

            “It could be a memory!” he said with absolute seriousness. Kenma suddenly felt very annoyed with the older male’s presence. It could have been the fact he had already laughed at him, or it could be the fact that, to his knowledge he hadn’t been shot or bitten at any point in his life. He looked over at Kuroo with the “leave before I end up hurting you” glare. Kuroo sighed and stood up preparing to leave.

             As he opened the door, he looked over his shoulder, “You know I’m being 100% serious Kozume. With all of the sort of crazy stuff we do, the concept of that being a past life or something isn’t really too weird. Just think about that, and if it is a past life, why should it matter with what is going on now? That’s what I think anyway.” He added with a grin.

             “…I guess…and thanks.” He grumbled out.

              “Yeah yeah I’m just glad it was something simple as reincarnation, and not wet dreams!”

               “Goddammit Kuroo leave.” Kenma moved to throw another thing as the door quickly slammed.

                Kenma moved over to his bed and just sat down. Kuroo had a point, possibly. Kenma wasn’t sure he believed in reincarnation, but he hunted vampires so maybe he should keep an open mind. He was starting to become curious about the idea of a past life. Who was he before now? What kind of things did he do that led him to die like that? But more importantly, why was he starting to get these memories now? Before he could ruin his mind with more questions, he decided to do something completely different to distract himself. He needed a better distraction than video games, so he decided to do his math homework he had been neglecting. He logged into the site to do the online assignment and realized he needed his calculator. After searching his backpack and pencil bag, the graphing calculator was completely missing. He gave up, the homework wasn’t due until next week anyway, and decided to try to sleep. If he left it in class or anywhere else on campus he really hoped the person who’d find it would use his contact info he duct-taped on the back. Despite being worried about the impending dream…well memory, as soon as he got comfortable on the tiny bed, he was out. Outside of the dorm window a tree stood where someone had been perched the entire time. In their hand was the missing calculator. Their thumb slowly drew back and forth over the information almost caressing it.

                _“So I have to call you Kozume now…but at least I found you, and you’re alive._ ” The figure whispered as they jumped down from the tree and ran through the darkness leaving the sleeping hunter to mull over the dream.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still have no clue how long this is gonna be, but I have an idea of where I'm going with it  
> (hahha no I don't)

        His shoulder was still a bit raw from where the bullet had hit him. It wasn’t silver so it didn’t burn too bad, but Hinata figured it had to have some sort of thing on it to hurt when it struck his skin. He really hadn’t paid attention to it when it happened; he was way too preoccupied with the person who fired the rifle. He was in shock because the shooter was supposed to be dead.

        At first he was just finishing some “business” when he caught the smell of metal and gun powder, which was a pretty big warning sign of hunters. He went to escape but, as if by magic, or a horrible cliché, the wind shifted and brought a very familiar scent that he hadn’t sensed in almost two centuries. Immediately his priority switched from fleeing to finding out who it was coming from and when he found out…if his heart was still beating, it definitely stopped.

        It was him. It was Tetsuroo and he was alive. Hinata wanted nothing more than to run to him and hold him as close as physically possible, but given that the person in question was pointing a loaded gun at him, he ran instead. The emotional part of his head was at first extremely hurt and confused as to why he was shooting at him in the first place, but then Hinata remembered that the person he cared about probably didn’t remember him and wasn’t even in there anymore. As he ran to hide from the sniper and his partner, the injured vampire had decided that no matter what, he’d get him to remember who he was.

       Since talking with the hunter was out of the question at about 4:46 A.M, Hinata returned back to his small apartment that he and his sister Natsu shared. Not realizing that he had a seeping wound on his shoulder until he opened the door, he tried to hurry to his room to bandage it before she found out. He prayed she hadn’t come back from her feeding, but luck really was against him that night and she was standing in front of him before the door closed.

      “Shouyou, what happened to you?!” she panicked.

      “Well…what does it look like?” he jokingly questioned treating the shoulder wound like the most casual thing in the world. She wasn’t in the mood for it.

      “Knock it off you dork, it looks really bad.” Natsu grimaced as she stood a bit on her toes to see the full scope of the hole.

       He sighed. “It’s not that bad, honestly. It just looks gross.” Hinata said with a tiny smile. He wanted her not to worry about him. Ever since their mother had ended up killed by hunters, he was really all she had left family wise. At the moment he wasn’t even focusing on the pain in his arm, there was a weird aching in his chest he hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. It felt like grief, but why was he grieving? Maybe it was longing. Longing to see a certain human that until an hour ago, he thought was gone from his life. He was so caught up in his thoughts; he was freaked out when a tiny hand was snapping in his face.

      “Earth to Shouyou, I said let me clean it for you.” A very annoyed Natsu said.

       Turns out, according to Natsu, the bullet had been covered in holy water and that was why it burned more than anything. Hinata shrugged off the bandages she had wrapped on him. It would heal on its own, albeit more slowly due to the water, but a couple of days nothing would be there. He was way more restless, especially after having to sit through about 20 minutes of his younger sister fussing over him. He needed to go out.

       “Not with that shoulder.” she protested.

       He threw her a lazy glare, “You know I’m older right? So I don’t need permission to go out, and you can’t stop me.” His mind was in another place, so hadn’t meant to be short with her and he realized that when she pouted at him.

        “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m still a little thirsty and I got interrupted when this happened…so…I’ll be careful I promise Natsu!” he said as he made his way over to the door. He couldn’t really tell her what actually happened or what he was actually going out to do. It had nothing to do with the sniper that resembled someone special to him, not at all. Hinata also was not about to go track him down by scent to find him, because that would be insane. When he left the apartment, he just happened to head in the direction from where had come from earlier.

        The closest he got to finding “Tetsuroo”, because he doubted that was still his name, was the college campus he was standing at. There were too many scents to pick out his specific one and by the time he had made his way there, it was about 6:50 in the morning so pretty soon there would be drowsy students stumbling around campus causing more problems. Not to mention that the higher the sun rose the more noticeable he would become. His eyes would stand out during day and become a vibrant red that was too intense to be confused for contacts; they would be a dead giveaway. Being in the sun too long also drained him of his strength very significantly. If Hinata was out there too long he could end up passed out and his shoulder wound opening and not being able to heal properly. He needed to go back home. That’s what he needed to do, but what he wanted to do was at least see him. Once again making a stupid decision, Hinata continued his search, being very mindful to walk in the shade with his eyes downcast.

       Any vampire in their right minds would never be outside at noon, when the sun was in its highest position, but Hinata hadn’t been in his right mind for a while now so he could care less. Finding him was his only concern and since he hadn’t done it, his fatigue and judgment would have to wait. He was currently stumbling in a breezeway that was shady enough to keep the red in his irises from being visible. Although he was a little less than optimistic at that point, Hinata walked until he realized someone had bumped into him and fallen. Being the polite and nervous vampire he was, Hinata immediately apologized.

      “Oops! I’m sorry let me help you up.” He said and when his eyes caught on to who had been knocked down by him, Hinata almost screamed.

      His hair was mostly black with the ends a dirty blonde color and he was a little taller than Hinata. His face was exactly how Hinata remembered it, except without the dark circles under his golden brown eyes. When he pulled him to his feet he realized how soft the person’s hand were, just how they had always been. He couldn’t help but to stare at him, and that completely distracted him from realizing that his hand was still grasping the other’s hand. Thank goodness he noticed that it was weird to still be holding another person’s hand after helping them up that he dropped it seconds later. He suddenly felt the ache again, and couldn’t help but stare into his eyes. The hunter looked at him, and didn’t seem to recognize him as the vampire from before, and honestly, Hinata was disappointed. Why didn’t he know him? Why didn’t he remember what his face looked like? Why didn’t he say anything? Hinata missed that staring at people too long made them uncomfortable, and before he knew had made that crucial mistake, the boy ran off. The only words Hinata heard from him were “thank you.” God, he really hated how he felt now. He began to walk away, dejected and confused when he noticed a boxy object on the ground. On closer inspection it was a graphing calculator that had duct tape on the back of it with small handwriting.

_‘If found please return to Kozume Kenma in dorm #105…’_

        Well Hinata’s day had just become 100% better.

       Breaking into the dorm would be a mistake, because it would be rude, also Kenma was a vampire hunter and Hinata was pretty sure that a majority of his hunting stuff would be in there. After being out in the open all day, Hinata was considerably weaker and doubted he could’ve fought him if it came to that. When he found the dorm, he decided the safest thing would be to look in from outside. Lucky for him, there was a tree that was tall enough for him to see into the tiny room and not be seen. At around 10 P.M, Kenma had came in and Hinata almost fell out of the tree trying to closer to the window but he saw another person enter the room so he quickly scooted back to his original position. He didn’t want admit to the nagging feeling of jealousy that began to well inside him. When Hinata realized that the other person in the room was another hunter from the night before, he pushed the feeling away. If either one of the men in the room noticed him out there, as tired as he was, Hinata would have no chance of escaping with his life, so he’d have to keep his feelings at bay and rely on his instincts.

      After what seemed like an eternity, the guy, Kuroo, left and Hinata relaxed a bit. From the way it sounded, Kenma did have some recollection of his past memories, it’s just that they were literally the last things that happened to him, and that upset Hinata deeply. He only remembered when he had died. None of the time they had spent getting to know each other, not his face, not his name, only that he had been there when he had died. He let out an unnecessary breath. Trying to get him to remember Hinata was going to be near impossible. Strangely, a new set of strength came flowing into him. He began to smile.

     “So I have to call you Kozume now…but at least I found you and you’re alive.”

     It had been a long day of gathering information, not stalking, and Hinata was so exhausted he almost didn’t make it back to his apartment. He suddenly realized he had been gone for about 18+ hours without coming back during the day…also that he was injured…and that Natsu was worried about him when he left. He was in for it when he opened the door. He ducked when the door opened before he could even touch it. As usual, whenever he had pissed her off, she would grab heavy objects and throw them at his head, this time it looked like a chair.

     “Happy to see you too sis.” He groggily murmured as he entered the living room.

      “What the hell! You’ve been gone all day and you smell like you’ve been outside. Are you crazy or something? What if someone saw you? What if they followed you? What if-“

      “Natsu, relax. None of that happened, I’m back and I’m fine.” He said as he walked past her. She wasn’t gonna let him brush her off this time, and he knew this when she latched on to his waist keeping him from moving.

     “I…I just don’t want to lose you…just…” she trailed off.

     Hinata turned around and returned the hug. “I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be out that long and I don’t mean to worry you…but you know Natsu I can look after myself. No hunter can take down your big brother.” He added with a smirk.

     She smiled a bit and punched his shoulder, the wounded one making him wince.

     “Yeah they may not be able kill you, but they can make you cry like a baby!” They both started laughing and Hinata could feel the tension rolling away, until Natsu abruptly stopped and began sniffing the air. Her eyes widened when she sensed the familiarity of the smell and she was not happy at all.

     “What is _that_?” she asked, all trace of joking gone.

      After all of the places he’d gone today, how did she pick out the one smell that would be a dead giveaway to what had happened? Hinata played dumb.

      “What…?”

      She pulled up his hand that had earlier hauled Kenma to his feet.

      “ _That_.”She glared at him. “I know that smell and I thought _that_ was dead.”

      “Well…I may have run into him today…and uh helped him up. That’s it.”

      He could see the wheels turning in her head. Why he had gone out after she fixed his shoulder and why he was gone all day. She was completely livid and shoved him away from her.

      “You went out to find that bastard didn’t you!” she screeched.

      “It’s not like that.” He lied. “I…saw someone who looked like him and I wanted to make sure.”That did not help his case, it actually made it worse. Exhaustion could make one say very stupid things.

       “I’m not stupid Shouyou. You wouldn’t just go out on a hunch, you knew it was him! Did you forget that he’s the reason Mom is dead?”

       He figured she’d bring it up. She was partially right, but technically speaking his family was more responsible for her death rather than Kenma himself. It didn’t make it hurt less, especially since he had anything to do with it at all. That made it worse. Natsu was rightly mad, and since Shouyou was exhausted he didn’t see the reason to bring up old arguments. He sighed.

       “No, I didn’t forget that…I just wanted to see if he did.” He still wasn’t telling the whole truth, but this was probably the only route that ended up without him getting hit in the head by furniture. She seemed to calm down a bit as he went on.

       “If he remembers anything, then he’d remember me and you. I went to find out if he did, and he doesn’t. That’s all that happened.”

       “If that’s it then…that’s fine…” she reasoned. Relieved she stopped questioning him, he turned to leave.

       “But I swear Shouyou, if I ever see him again, I will kill him.”

       All he could do was nod. If he even dared to speak, he’s not what he could’ve said to that. He went into his room and shut the door and didn’t realize his legs were shaking until he was leaning against frame for support. He had already lost him before, and now it looked like he could lose him again and his sister would be the one to do it. And his mood soured once again. His natural sense of rebellion came through, and maybe because over the time he had been a vampire he’d develop a love for dangerous situations.

_“Well she has to see him to actually kill him…so it’s not like_ **I** _can’t see him.”_ He thought. One of Hinata’s specialties was making at least 20 horrible decisions before the sun came up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really just love Hinata being dumb and making dumb decisions, it's fun right?  
> (and as an update schedule uhh I don't have one, but I can guarantee one chap. a week...so I'm doing pretty good)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to write, but that was because I've been extremely busy over the weekend. In this chapter we get to see these dorks hang out...sorta

   Kenma had hoped that falling immediately into sleep would have meant that he was too exhausted to dream. Unfortunately for the stressed out hunter, the dreams, memories, or whatever they were, came back and were way more vivid than they ever had been.

    Now he could see he was being pulled through a forest and could feel the scraps and scratches that branches had been leaving on his face. He couldn’t see who was dragging him along but they had an extremely tight grip on his hand, and he was gripping equally hard. They ended up in small clearing and the unknown stranger finally looked at him. It was still a little blurry but he could actually make out some rougher details, like their hair color, which was a bright orange color and was all over their head. His hair completely covered his eyes so he still couldn’t tell who it exactly was. Before he could get a better look, another person came bursting through the trees and the memory proceeded from there…except instead of one shot, there were multiple. Hold on. That wasn’t shooting Kenma heard. The distant thudding stopped for a moment and then when it picked up again, he realized the sound was knocking. He rolled over in his bed somewhat grateful to be woken up before the screaming happened. The heartbreaking yelling he heard always made him feel terrible and he never knew why, so to skip that part made him a little more relaxed. That being said, he wasn’t too thrilled about being woken up at…1 P.M, whatever it was still early to him. He slowly moved over to the door to tell off the person there to leave when he was greeted with a somewhat familiar flustered smile.

    “Hey!”

   Kenma was startled, and it wasn’t because that this person had a loud voice. It was because of his hair, it matched the brightness and unruly-ness of the person in the dream. It was too early, for him anyway, for this type of thing to be happening and he hadn’t meant to stare, but when you had just woken up from a dream where a person looked very much like the person at the door, staring was just kinda expected.

    “Uh…hi?”

    Now it was the stranger’s turn to stare. Realizing that he was standing at someone’s door completely unannounced and hadn’t opened his mouth to say anything other than “hey”, Hinata tried his best to salvage the already awkward situation. He felt weight in his jacket pocket and then the reason that he had shown up to Kenma’s dorm came to him.

    “Yesterday when I bumped into you, I guess this fell out of your backpack!” he said while procuring the calculator. “And you’re Kozume Kenma right?”

    Honestly, he had forgotten about the encounter and this person altogether. He nodded and slowly reached out for it.

    “Thanks…” Kenma trailed off.

    “Shouyou, Hinata Shouyou.”He searched his face as he said his name. Nothing changed in Kenma’s expression.

   Kenma hadn’t paused for the introduction, he was still surprised at the resemblance this Hinata had to the person in his dream. Not that he was going to mention that out loud. Noticing it was more or less his turn to speak, Kenma tried to come up with something to say, but his brain was still partially asleep. Given he had been asleep for approximately 15 hours, it was taking him a little while to wake up. Well that was one thing to mention.

    “Sorry, I just woke up…”

    “Really? It’s like 2 in the afternoon.” He chuckled.

    “Well I had a lot homework I needed to catch up on so…a lot of late nights.” He spoke carefully not wanting to give too much away. When he actually looked at Hinata, instead of his tousled hair, he noticed how excited the guy looked. It appeared that he was literally shaking with happiness just from talking to Kenma. That was starting to freak him out just a tiny bit, just like the day before. Something about this person seemed…off. Being the paranoid guy he was, Kenma put more of his weight on the door making it open a slight bit more, just enough for a small bit of light to get through. He saw just enough and moved the door back the way it was.

    “So uh thanks for bringing it back. You saved me like a month’s worth of food if I had to buy another one.” He forced a tiny smile. It’s not that being polite was hard, it was just how uncomfortable Hinata’s gaze made him feel. He wanted to close the door as soon as possible. Almost sensing the end of the conversation, Hinata decided to go for broke, like he’d ever get a chance to ‘”accidentally” run into Kenma anywhere else.

    “At the risk of totally embarrassing myself, I was wondering if maybe we could get a coffee or something later?” He’d totally embarrassed himself and Kenma stood there completely dumbfounded by the bold question. Didn’t he just show up to give him his calculator back?

    “Uh…you seriously just asked me to like go on a date after meeting me for a minute yesterday.”

    “Pretty much.” He smirked. Something about that look definitely made him want to slam the door in his face. There weren’t many pros to saying yes, and there a hell of a ton of cons making him want to scream no, but there was a glimmer in his eye, something sparked something in Kenma. For now, he’d say it was a challenge, and that was it. He really couldn’t believe the words that came out his mouth.

    “I guess coffee sounds pretty harmless.”

    “Wow, I thought I was going to get shut down for a second there!” Hinata blurted out and he seemed to fidget more at the prospect of Kenma actually agreeing to hanging out with him, sure it was something simple as coffee, but who cared.

    “When and where.” Kenma muttered suddenly aware as to what he agreed to.

    “Maybe 8 and you can pick where.” He coolly replied.

    He was skeptical about going out in the first place, but knowing that he got to pick where made him relax slightly. Part of him knew that Hinata did that on purpose, but he played it off when he answered.

    “There’s a small café right off campus that’d be fine.”

    “Ok, see you then!” Hinata said with the same smirk on his face. Kenma slowly closed the door still surprised he agreed to go out with him. What was wrong with him?

   As Hinata walked away, he smiled to himself ecstatic that he had a tiny chance of getting to hang out with the borderline shut-in Kenma. He sighed though. The light had caught his eyes, right in the middle. He saw, and he knew he did. The only reason he agreed to go out was because he saw Hinata was a vampire. From there, Hinata let him make his own decisions. Someplace familiar and he even gave him a time when people would still be out. Hinata supposed it was just to make Kenma comfortable, or to let him know he wasn’t going to try anything while they were out without him actually saying it. He hoped Kenma saw it that way. He highly doubted it, but he still couldn’t believe that Kenma even said yes to the outrageous request in the first place. He’d just have to see how everything would play out. Hinata quickly made his way back to his apartment, so Natsu wouldn’t be too suspicious as to where he went.

    It was about 8:05 when Kenma showed up to the café. He waited outside for his eager…acquaintance to show up. It was nearing the end of September and the weather was a little nippy even though fall had only been going on for about a week. He very much looked forward to having coffee to warm him up. The hoodie he was wearing was doing an ok job of keeping him warm, but his jittering from his nerves were warming him up a bit. An unexpected chill made his breath catch in his throat.

    “Sorry I’m late, I got lost for a bit.” The real story was that his sister was watching him very closely and tried to keep him from leaving before twilight. He loved her of course, but she could be a pain every other minute.

    “It’s not a big deal.” Kenma said trying to calm down a bit. He’s not sure Hinata wanted to scare the living shit out of him, but he really did. Wanting to get this over with, he made his way over to the door, but he found it already open and Hinata was the one holding it open. He gestured for him go in. Seriously?

    “And they say chivalry is dead…” Kenma muttered rolling his eyes. He heard Hinata laugh behind him.

    He doesn’t really care what he ordered, mostly because he had never been there before and because he was distracted by the orange haired person behind him humming. When he got his coffee he took a sip and grimaced. Way too bitter. Hinata ordered a small hot chocolate and paid for both drinks. Hinata led them to a small booth in the back. When they sat across from each other was probably when Kenma noticed how painfully awkward this was about to be. He absolutely hated small talk, and Hinata just made him feel weird. This was going to suck royally.

   “I’m happy you came out with me tonight.” Hinata said while looking at his cup. His confidence seemed to dull just a bit and he sounded shy. It was sort of cute…nope no way that thought crossed his mind. He stamped the thought away and took a sip of his gross coffee hoping to keep it away.

   “It’s the least I can do for the calculator and all.”

   “Yeah, I guess you did owe me.” And the smirk was back.

   “So what class were you heading to when I bumped into you?”

   “Statistics.” He mentioned. He really did not want to spend his time talking about that torture chamber called a class.

   “Ew, that’s sounds awful.” Hinata said sharing his feelings for the subject. “I was headed to library to study for a History exam.”

    That was a blatant lie. From the way he ran into him, the library was behind Hinata. Why was he going through all of this trouble in the first place? Kenma really thought of leaving, but he couldn’t bring himself to get up and walk out.

    “I was studying about this story I heard of that happened like 200 years ago, about these families. Now they hated each other right, and they went to all kinds of lengths to keep their families separated…even killing each other.”

    Kenma is only partially listening. Who cares about a stupid History lesson on a date, or whatever this was?

    “But there are like two people who end up together and one of the families is not having that at all, so they send out his brother to kill the other person…but he ends up killing his brother by accident, well the guy jumped in the way of the bullet so it wasn’t really his fault.”

    He’s a little interested now. Kenma sips his coffee pretending just to be as disinterested as before.

    “And the other person is just freaking out, screaming and calling out his name. He tries everything he can to save him, but his sister comes and drags him away because his family was in trouble.”

    He’s trying his hardest not to show any shock in his face and he thought he was doing a decent job, until Hinata finishes the “history lesson”.

   “And poor Tetsuroo was just left out there to bleed out on the forest floor.” Hinata said staring directly into Kenma’s eyes. He’s not sure when he ran out of the café, but the next thing he knew Kenma was outside trying to steady his breathing.

    Back at the booth, Hinata slowly stood up and walked to the back of the place where Kenma had ran out.

   “Well could’ve gone better.”

   When he found him, Kenma was completely pale and shaking. He went to touch him when a sudden glint of metal caught his eye. He had a small dagger held in a defensive way. It didn’t look like he was going to attack him, so long as he stood about 2 feet away from him.

  “I was wondering when you were going to use that.” Hinata said cautiously. From the moment he walked up to Kenma, he could smell the sharp smell of the metal. He had hoped that the dagger would have stayed hidden, but he had to open his big mouth and freak him out.

  “Stop talking…back up!” he said dangerously low. He was terrified and his mind was becoming fuzzy again. How much of this did that Hinata know?

   “Listen, I’m not trying to hurt you I just-“he stepped closer. Very bad idea.

    Instantly Kenma lunged forward trying to bury the dagger in his arm, but Hinata sidestepped him and was behind him now.

  “Ok ok, relax. I just want to talk with you.” Hinata said raising his hands a bit.

  “I said stop talking you bloodsucker!”

   Hinata visibly flinched at the insult. He’s been called that before, and it always made him laugh, but hearing it come from Kenma hurt way more than he was prepared for. He stood there for a minute and he saw Kenma collect himself a bit. He let out a shaky breath.

   “Why do you know about that?”

   “It’s kinda obvious right? I was there, I’m the other person in the story.”

    Kenma turned around to face Hinata staring him down. He wasn’t going to be fooled that easily.

   “You’re lying. Those are dreams nothing more than a bunch of weird dreams!” His denial filled his voice as he screamed at Hinata.“You’re using that as an excuse to kill me. You’d freak me out so I wouldn’t be able to fight you.” He rationalized.

   “I wouldn’t take you a place where a lot of people were at this time at night to do this and I really didn’t mean to scare you. I was…just trying to see if you remembered anything.” Hinata called back. His gaze bore into Kenma’s.

  “Just listen to me, please.” At this point, what did he have to lose? Kenma straightened up a bit, but kept the dagger out.

  “Ok, I asked you out to see how much you remember from before, and it seems you only know about how you died.”

  “How do you know that?” Kenma asked, his voice still wavering.

  “Well…I may have overheard some bits and pieces the other night-“

  “So you stalked me and eavesdropped basically.” His scathing tone bothering Hinata more.

  “Sure whatever, but the point is the memories are really screwing up your head aren’t they?”

  “Well no shit, if you kept remembering how you died, you’d be screwed up too.”

   Hinata wasn’t getting anywhere except making Kenma more anxious. The sooner this conversation was over, the better it would be for both of them.

  “I’m trying to say, I think I can help you with this…if you want.” Well there it was.

   Kenma just stared at him, he was doing that a lot lately, but this was the most unbelievable thing he had heard all week.

  “How…the hell can you help me?” Hinata began to smile, at least Kenma seemed curious.

   “I was there right, so I remember _everything_.”

   “Well that’s nice for you, but how exactly does that help me?” Kenma sort of understood where this was going, but it was still almost impossible Hinata was going to suggest it.

   “The more time I spend with you, the more of your past memories may come back.” He bluntly said. To Kenma it sounded pretty simple minded, and it was such a simplistic idea he couldn’t help but to laugh. It was a scornful laugh. He laughed really hard to the point he was in tears.

   “Are you insane? I’m a vampire hunter and you’re the thing I hunt and kill. My whole family is filled with vampire hunters and I have a cousin at the campus! Just when exactly are we supposed to ‘hang out’?” He was still laughing when Hinata spoke and the weird thing was Hinata was sort of laughing too.

   “Hey, I don’t mind a challenge, how do you think we even got in this situation in the first place?”

   Kenma was still glaring at him. The idea was absurd…but honestly what in his life wasn’t. He wasn’t going to agree to anything just yet. He stayed silent and Hinata could see the uncertainty all over his face.

   “How about I make you a deal?” Here came another bad decision, but he was on a roll so why stop now.

   “What kind of deal?”

   “You agree to us hanging out or whatever so you can get some of your past memories back and at any point you’re tired of me, you can kill me.” He stated eyes focused and clear. Kenma had to shake his head to make sure he heard him right.

   “Given the circumstances, I actually deserve it.” Hinata mentioned. Kenma swiftly moved behind him and placed the dagger up to his throat putting enough pressure to cut into his skin.

   “So what if I decided right now to kill you? How does this work into your ‘deal’?” He threatened.

    Hinata chuckled. “Go ahead. You’ll be left with those missing memories though. I mean I’m literally the only person who could tell you about you other life, but hey do what you want.” He nonchalantly replied.

    God Kenma was frustrated at how relaxed this punk seemed and he had a very good point. If he wanted these parts to come together he would need Hinata. He still wasn’t entirely convinced. There had to be a catch.

   “There’s more to this I’m sure.”

   “Well kinda. If you want to kill me, you’re the only person I’ll allow to do it.”

   “Meaning…?”

   “You try to get anyone else to come after me, like your cousin for example, I won’t let them kill me. Or to put it simply, you’re the only person who can kill me and I will kill anyone else who tries.”

    That basically was Hinata saying that this was supposed to stay a secret. Something told Kenma there was a serious reason for this other than Hinata being strange. Honestly, Kenma was stuck. He could agree to the deal and kill him whenever, or kill him now and just endure the memories…but his resolve was wearing thin. Hinata had really found the best way to corner him. It just wasn’t fair. He slowly released Hinata from his grasp and he turned to look him dead in the eye.

   “…Fine, I agree to whatever this is.” Kenma said and he was extremely irritated by the smug grin Hinata had.

   “Great, I guess we’re done here.” He said turning to leave. Refusing to not have the last word, Kenma spoke to the retreating vampire.

   “I hope you know, I’m not that Tetsuroo person you know all those years ago. I’m someone completely different. Don’t expect me to remember who you were.” Surprisingly Hinata laughed.

   “Hehe, I know that, but hopefully you’ll get to know me as I am now. So I’ll see you later.”

   “When exactly is ‘later’?”

   “Who knows?” Hinata said with that stupid smirk of his. Kenma was pretty sure this was going to end with him killing Hinata. Pretty damn sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's pretend this isn't taking over my life...yes let's pretend that for a second  
> Well that was fun (I'm shamelessy gonna promote myself here too at zari-luna.tumblr.com if you wanna ask me questions about this)


	4. Chapter 4

   The night before proved to be way more troublesome than Kenma really had anticipated it to be, but the only positive was that the memories that had been bothering him didn’t come to him when he finally went to sleep. His mind was too busy with thoughts of the “date” and what he agreed to with the aggravating vampire. The events kept replaying so much, he couldn’t actually tell if he was asleep or not at one point and his alarm going off was the only reason he knew he was out at all. Kenma felt groggy, but the only solace he had were the memories stopping…at least for that night. He rolled over to shut off the beeping from the tiny clock on his nightstand. Strangely, he was restless. For once he really just wanted to be out of his room which was beginning to feel very small. Without a second thought, Kenma threw on a pair of sweatpants from the back of a chair and put on an old jacket and was rushing out of the door. Miraculously, he had his phone and keys in his pocket, not sure when he got them but it didn’t matter, he was dialing Kuroo before he had left the hallway.

   “Hey, are you busy right now?”

 

   Hinata still wasn’t completely rested from being out during the day, for the last two days. Thankfully, his shoulder was healed, except for a tiny scar from where the bullet entered. It looked cool to him, but Natsu was still paranoid about it, among other things.

   “What is going on with you Shouyou?” she questioned.

   If it wasn’t one thing it was another with her. He was glad she cared about him, honestly he was, but there was a fine line between “caring” and “nagging”. He was pretty sure she had crossed that line already.

   “Nothing.” At the moment nothing had happened, so technically he wasn’t lying to her. Telling her that he had made a deal with a vampire hunter that he could kill him whenever he got tired of him would definitely give her more reason to nag.

  “Yeah right. You’ve been going all over for extremely long hours doing who knows what. Whenever you come back here you look like you’re gonna keel over!” She whined.

   Hinata was currently lying on the small couch they had in the apartment. He had tried to go to his room, but she caught him and won’t leave him alone until he heard all of her _2 hour rant_. If he hadn’t been so exhausted he’d left ages ago. He figured it may have been a better idea to sit through her talking away. If he pretended to nod and listen, then anytime he did leave she’d be less suspicious…maybe. It was worth a try.

   “It’s like you don’t even care about the rules anymore!”

   “What rules? You can’t just make up rules to control people Natsu…” Hinata sat up and looked at her. She stared back her gaze burning into him.

   “They aren’t my rules…they’re mom’s.” He sunk back on to the couch. So many years had passed since his mom had been killed, he completely forgot, or ignored, the rules she gave both of them so they wouldn’t end up like her.

   “She’d never let us be out during the day like this Shouyou and there’s a whole bunch of other stuff you’ve been doing that just ruins her memory.”

    He sat there staring at the ceiling.

   “She’d do anything to keep us alive and this is what you do show you’re grateful?” She asked getting as close to his face as possible. Hinata kept staring at the ceiling. He bit his tongue as hard as possible to keep from yelling at Natsu. And it wasn’t that he was angry at her, he was angry with himself. He figured screaming at her how much he really hated himself, was not going to defuse the tension. He’d been pretty fantastic at keeping his problems to himself, why start sharing now?

   “You’re right. I did forget about them, but it’s not like I’m trying to forget about the stuff mom did for us I just…have a lot going on at the moment.” That was the closest he got to telling the truth. Some small part of the universe smiled down on him because Natsu just walked away and slammed her door. He stayed on the couch trying to get comfortable, but there was no point in trying.

 

    Kenma really let Kuroo take the reins in what they did, which he instantly regretted because of course he wanted to do training. The sparring and running helped him feel less anxious sure, but his body physically rejected the experience entirely. According to Kuroo, you could never be too careful in dealing with vampires, and he was 100% right, so all of the exercise was necessary. After spending the entire day with him, Kenma had had enough exercise for next 10 years.

 _“Never again.”_ He thought as he entered his dorm. At least the ordeal was over and he could sleep…unless a certain vampire was hanging out at his desk. He would have been more surprised if he had the energy. Currently Hinata was looking one of the guns Kenma had.

   “You know I thought having these were illegal?”

   He took the gun carefully out of his hands. “It is.”

   “Oh, interesting.” He said while leaning back in the chair.

   “So breaking into my dorm is something else you do now?”

   “Along with eavesdropping and stalking.” Hinata pointed out. Kenma’s hand slightly twitched towards the gun.

   “Whatever. Look, I’m not up for this right now-“

   “Well let’s be honest for a minute you’re never really gonna be ‘up for this’ so anytime is good.”

    He really hated having to admit that a vampire was right, especially when it was Hinata. With a heavy sigh, he sat down on the bed.

   “So, how was your day?” Hinata asked as if this was the most casual situation in the world.

   “Fine, what the hell does this have to do with anything?”

   “I’m trying to make you a little comfortable.” They both knew that was dumb. It was more like Hinata had no clue what to ask, so any little regular question was the best he could do.

   “Do you know what you’re even doing?” Kenma asked.

   “No, I’ve never had to unlock anyone’s memories from a past life before so excuse me if I’m a little unsure of what I’m doing.” He quipped back. Hinata was still a little irritated from earlier, and Kenma was getting the blunt end of it. Kenma really wasn’t exactly chipper either.

   “Well this plan sounded so thought-out yesterday I can’t understand what went wrong?” Kenma sarcastically murmured. Hinata stood up, way quicker than he intended, and loomed over Kenma.

   “Listen, _you_ need _my_ help. Not the other way around and I’m sorry this isn’t living up to your expectations, but give me a chance without being so fucking negative!” Internally, he was terrified but he didn’t want the fear welling inside him to show on his face so he just stared at Hinata. Feeling that he may have overstepped a boundary, Hinata backed away and sat down.

   “Sorry…I haven’t had the best of days either, and really can’t imagine what’s going on with you, but just try to go along with this…please.” It was a sincere apology and Kenma let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. He felt extremely weird to agree with Hinata in any context, but he would just have to go with it.

   “Ok…I’ve been out all day doing all kinds of things so I’m tired…what about you?”

    Hinata grinned. “Someone was nagging me all day about stuff I really didn’t want to hear about…my mom.”

    Kenma nodded in acknowledgement. Hinata suddenly looked up and seemed to have an idea.

   “Maybe that’s a good place to start.” He said more to himself.

   “What?”

   “Maybe if I told you about myself a bit, it could give us more to talk about besides our daily activities.”

    Kenma considered it for a bit. If his past self knew Hinata, it couldn’t hurt for him now to learn about him. “Worth a shot.”

   “Ok then. I guess starting with how I became a vampire would be a nice place to start. I know this is a really annoying way to start, but it actually is a long story. My family lived in small cottage on the outskirts of a village…I can’t really remember where it was, but that’s not important. For awhile the four of us, mom, dad, me, and my sister, lived a pretty basic life.”

   “Let me guess, a stranger shows up and kills your entire family except for you and you become a vampire?” Kenma interrupted. Hinata had to laugh.

   “It would be very typical, but that’s not what happened. An outbreak of tuberculosis spread and affected about 80% of the people in the village, including me, my dad, and my sister. Dad didn’t last too long, and we weren’t very far from dying either. My mom either wasn’t sick or it really took a long to affect her.” Despite his personal feelings of irritation towards Hinata, he really did feel bad for him and if he wasn’t too interested in the story, he would have apologized.

   “She looked around for anyone who could help us, but everyone was dealing with sickness in their own families or they just didn’t want to catch it. There wasn’t anyone she could turn to and she almost gave up until, she came across someone who would help us. If you’re wondering, this guy was the actual vampire. I have absolutely no clue where she found him and everything about me getting turned is a little fuzzy too, but I know my mom is the one who did it. I’m just going to assume that he bit her, and she bit us. A real devout mother she was.”Hinata looked out of the small window, a somber expression on his face. He paused for a moment before continuing.

   “It was a shock, and I when first woke up like this…I remember calling my mom a monster for doing that to me. My little sister was the more rational one believe it or not! I get it now that she did what she had to do to save us…despite kinda screwing us over…forget I said that. I’m sort of happy I’m a vampire.” He said while smiling at Kenma. He eyed Hinata a bit, uncertain about the feeling the smile gave him…it definitely wasn’t a pleasant one. He ignored it.

   “Well we couldn’t live in the town anymore; I mean there were three new vampires in a dying town, so the odds of living there comfortably were little to none. The vampire that turned us said he’d take us to like this group of vampires and I think my mom wanted him to take us there because we’d learn how to live like vampires or something. Well he took us there and he left.”

   “What happened to him?”

   “Don’t know, and I really don’t care.” Hinata said bluntly. Hinata never wanted to blame his mother for any of the things that happened to him, so he put the blame on the other guy. He had come to terms with being a vampire but after the whole situation with Kenma had happened, the familiar feeling of resentment came back and had been weighing him down ever since.

   “Life from there was sort of normal, minus the blood drinking and all.”

   A sudden question came up in Kenma’s mind,” Do you still only partially drain someone instead of completely killing them?”

   Hinata’s full attention was on Kenma now. His eyes grew wide as he stared at him. Kenma wasn’t sure why Hinata was looking at him like that, it was just a question.

   “You..you remember that?”

   The words that came out of his mouth suddenly dawned on him, why did he remember that?

  “You actually freaking remembered something!” Hinata was floored by the sudden memory. This plan of hanging out wasn’t a total waste of time after all. Kenma was just as surprised as Hinata. He was completely stunned to silence. Hinata on the other hand was practically bouncing up and down in the chair he was so giddy. There was a small glimmer of hope for them.

   There were some pictures rapidly flashing in Kenma’s head. Even though he was speaking more himself, a jumble words came out of his mouth.

   “I followed you one night to see you feed, because I needed to know…I was trying to prove..your innocence…and…” he grabbed his head suddenly. The memory was there but it was slowly fading away and with it a painful headache came on. Hinata was instantly at his side.

   “Woah take it easy. Don’t push yourself too far right now.” He whispered. He gingerly put his hand over Kenma’s to calm him down, but at the slight touch Kenma flinched away from Hinata.

   “D-don’t touch me!” He was rattled from all of the information happening at once. He took several deep breaths and as quickly as the pain had started, it went away. When he appeared to be relaxed, Hinata tried to scoot closer but Kenma edged further away.

   “I’m fine. I don’t need you that close to figure that out.” He murmured.

   “Sorry…with all of that, it just reminded me of old times.” Hinata said looking at his hands.

   “Were you always ‘touchy-feely’ with your friends?” Hinata had a confused look on his face.

   “Well I was checking if you were ok one, and two what do you mean by ‘friends’ because if you meant how we were in the past…we were a tiny bit more than friends.” He blankly stared at Hinata for about a minute until his words clicked in his head. No way, nope, absolutely not. _There was no way in hell_ that was what he heard.

   “Hold on, you mean to say that weren’t just friends, but we were _more than friends!_ ” His voice cracking at the end of the sentence.

   “Yeah, what did you think I meant when I said we were together?” Hinata laughed nervously. Kenma was off the bed and leaning on his desk trying to process everything. He tried at least three times to say something, but he just couldn’t form the words into a coherent phrase. Hinata watched him amused at his freak-out.

   “Oh calm down, you’re overreacting just a little.” Hinata said with a little laugh in his voice. Kenma slammed his hands on the desk promptly shutting Hinata up.

  “I’m overreacting?! Just what the hell are you trying to get out of this?” He was livid…and very embarrassed. “What did you think was going to happen after I got my memory back, that we’d pick up where we left off? You are out of your fucking mind if you think that is ever going to happen!”

    Hinata rolled his eyes, “I wasn’t expecting you to be ok with that in the first place Kenma. If I was, do you think I’d say you could kill me whenever you felt like it? I told you, I just want to help you. Trust me, us being in a relationship didn’t turn out too hot the first time.”

    Kenma settled down but he still wouldn’t Hinata in the face. The scarlet in his cheeks would not go away. He stood there listening to the rest of Hinata’s words.

   “It does more for me to see you happy and not messed up because the memories. I just want you to get your memories back and then I’ll leave you alone…if that’s what you want.” The last part he whispered.

    Kenma sighed and nodded. Figuring he was done talking, Hinata moved towards the window opening it.

   “Uh…well I’m gonna go now so I’ll see you later.” He said with all of his usual happiness back in his voice,” Oh and Kenma.”

    Did he dare look at Hinata? He definitely knew that dumb smirk would be there and when he peeked over his shoulder he was right.

   “That blush is really cute you know.” He said and he was gone the next moment.

   He slammed the window closed, fell back on to his bed, grabbed his pillow, and placed it over his head and groaned loudly into it. What was going on with his life?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is just weighing poor Hinata down aren't they? (Well that's my fault but you get the idea)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geez this took like forever to write and it was because I've been super busy (well I've been sick and then had to play catch-up at work and school) but mostly these "in-between" chapters...I never know what to do with them  
> I sorta figured it out....

_“You can come with me if you want. It will help you trust me.”_

_“I am not sure I want to trust you…but I cannot deny things I’ve seen with my own eyes.” He feels a tug on his hand._

_“Well then let’s go!” He’s moving with the person and they end up in cottage looking down on a sleeping figure. The other whispers to him,” Be very still to not wake them…I will not hurt them, I promise.”_

_“But can you keep that promise?” He asks.The other person moves away to show him. They move over to the unconscious figure on the bed and shift them slightly to get better access to their neck. He watches, ready to react at any moment. They bite and he counts how long before he moves away. 1…2…3…4…5…it takes forever to him. By the time he gets to 10, they move away and the spot where they bit is nowhere to be seen._

_“But…how?”_

_“I have a way to hide the bite so the marks do not appear on their skin.”_

_He keeps staring at the person in the bed, they did not stir and for a moment he was worried they weren’t alive. The person finally rolled over, sighing. They seemed perfectly fine. They both leave the tiny room and stand outside. Moonlight peeks through clouds as they stand quietly._

_“…do you believe me now?”_

_“I have no choice but to believe you… I have always been taught that…vampires always kill when that happens.”_

_He shakes his head, “I was not taught that way. Where I live, well where we live…it is not allowed. Some are always out to hunt us…less of a disturbance we are, the more we are left alone.” He looks at him directly in the eye._

_“After witnessing that, do you still believe that we are responsible for the deaths in your village?”_

_“I…cannot say for certain it was not anyone there…but I will believe you, only if you promise to feed like that always.”_

_He smiles and answers, “I promise.”_

   Kenma rolled over and opened his eyes. What was that? It had to be another memory. He could almost remember the smell from the cramped room…it had to have been a memory. He sat up and brought his knees to his chest. The memory wasn’t frightening like the other one, but it still made him feel weird, like he was missing a huge piece of what was going on. He thought back to previous night with that jerk of a vampire Hinata, and how he asked that out of nowhere question. He, well his past self, asked Hinata to promise him about the whole feeding thing. He never did get an answer, but right now he was still focused the images in his head that were slowly slipping away. It looked like no matter what he dreamed about, whenever he woke up, they would just disappear. Kenma moved towards the edge of his bed, groaning. What good did it do to have these stupid memories come back only to leave moments later? As if on auto-pilot, he picked up his cell phone and noticed he had a few text messages from Kuroo.

_“Hello sleeping beauty ;) you mind if I come ovr right now???”_

    It was sent about 10 minutes ago, and it took around 10 minutes for Kuroo to get to his dorm…so he really couldn’t say no. Before he could even send a reply, the expected knock made Kenma walk over to the door.

   “And good morning to you!” He said way too loud for how early it was.

    Kenma rolled his eyes and let his cousin in. Whatever he was there for, Kenma was pretty sure he wasn’t going to enjoy it.

   “Well I for one am glad we did all off that training stuff yesterday because now we can put it to good use. We have a job.” He mentioned as he sat down at Kenma’s desk. Kenma just plopped back down on his bed. Late nights and exercise were two things he could do without at the moment, not to mention he was still sore from working out the day before. Sensing the existential crisis Kenma was having, Kuroo just went on talking.

   “Ok so it looks like from info. I’ve got, we’re dealing with one, thank God. Also from the place it’s hit, they were really spread out and now they look like they’re becoming more concentrated…about here.” He tapped a red circle drawn on a map. “So it’s like 3-4 kilometer radius we should check out tonight, pretty light work I think.”

   “3 or 4 kilometers isn’t light…” Kenma mumbled from the bed.

   “Hey if you exercised more often it would be!” He quipped.

   “If it’s such light work, why don’t you go yourself?” Kenma was completely adamant about not going.

   “Well that’s dumb. It may be one vampire and I’m sure I could do it myself, but I’d feel way more confident if I had great sniper covering my ass, just in case.” Kuroo smiled.

   He was right. Kuroo was a competent vampire hunter but whenever they worked with each other, they had an almost 100% kill rate…almost 100% except for the escape of a certain orange haired pain. Kenma gave in.

   “Fine…” he groaned.

   “The sooner this gets done, the sooner you can go that nest you call a bed. I’ve also been meaning to ask, how are you?”It was still weird how Kuroo could go from joking to concerned in a split second.

    Kenma stared at the ceiling. He honestly had no clue how to answer that. He was a ways away from fine, but he’s better than he was…maybe? The now confirmed memories were still coming to him practically every night, and now they were different. Probably the most glaring thing was that he was getting the majority of this information from a damn vampire, but Kenma was just going to skip that completely. Realizing he hadn’t answered Kuroo, Kenma gave the standard lie of a response.

   “I’m ok.”

    Kuroo rolled his eyes, but didn’t press the issue any further.

   “Well maybe around 9:30 we should go alright?” and with that, Kuroo left. Kenma crawled under the heavy comforter on his bed. Whatever class he had today lost its priority.

   Kenma looked at his watch. 11:36. So for about 2 hours he had been sitting on top of building looking through the sight of his rifle. Nothing had happened and if a vampire had been there, they weren’t there now. He moved away from the gun and just looked out over the city. It was a little cool for him but the lights from other buildings and cars were nice to look at while waiting. His mind began to drift a bit. He thought back to the question he had asked Hinata and his earlier memory that was now just some pictures in his head. He wondered if Hinata still kept that promise if it so important to him and suddenly a little red flag went up in his head. Maybe they hadn’t found this vampire because it knew they would be on to him, especially Kenma. Maybe this vampire Kenma knew and had talked to…maybe this was Hinata they were looking for. A sudden vibration in pocket broke him out of his thoughts. It was a phone call.

   “There doesn’t look like anything is gonna happen tonight…I mean it is still early, but maybe starting later would be a better idea because I’m getting bored.”

   “Yeah.” He hadn’t heard much besides that they were leaving. He hoped by the time he got back to his dorm, the vampire in question was there.

    Hinata had been lying on Kenma’s bed for around two hours. When he had first broken in he was a little shocked to see that he wasn’t there to roll his eyes when he entered. He noticed that the large black bag the usually rested next the door was no longer there. He knew that was the rifle and if it was gone, then he was hunting. He felt a little nervous for Natsu since she was out right now doing what he should be doing instead of waiting for Kenma to come back. She was smart enough to hunt far from the apartment and never in the same place more than twice…at least he hoped she was. That was one rule he definitely hung on to. He almost decided to leave until he heard the sounds of keys in the lock. Kenma looked very pissed to see him there, so that was normal.

   “Hello!” Hinata chirped and in response Kenma pulled out the pistol.

   “Are you trying to play games with me?”

   “Uh…not sure what you’re talking about.” He really didn’t.

   “We’ve been chasing after you tonight, and here you are! Are you purposefully playing games with me!?” Kenma hissed. To Hinata’s knowledge, the only place he’d been for like 3 hours was right there on Kenma’s bed doing pretty much nothing. He was extremely confused, and not eager to get shot.

   “Woah, whatever conclusions you are jumping to, they aren’t true Kenma. Just calmly explain what’s going on.”

 

   Kenma slowly lowered the gun but kept it at his side, never a bad idea to be ready.

   “There have been multiple deaths around this area over the last few days, we go to check out the area and we couldn’t find anything. It’s like you’re using me as an excuse to do what you want and get out completely clean!”

   One new thing Hinata was beginning to see was how incredibly paranoid Kenma was. He figured laughing would be a bad way to respond to that, but he just really wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

  “First of all, I’m not dumb enough to feed in the same area more than once.” Sure he was currently trying to help a vampire hunter remember things of his past life but he’s come accept that kind of stupid, “Secondly, why would I feed in an area where I _know_ there are vampire hunters. Just because we have like this arrangement going on, I’m not gonna take advantage of it…of your trust like that.” He threw that last part out.

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “I don’t really expect you to, but I have not lied to you. Whether you want to believe that, it’s up to you.” Kenma’s eyes never left Hinata’s. It was a full 2 minutes before he sighed and put the gun on his desk. He still didn’t believe it, but he didn’t have the energy to argue. He wanted him to tell whatever story he had and leave. Thinking back yesterday, he brought up his unanswered question.

   “…I asked this last night but never got an answer. Do you still only partially drain someone to feed?”

   He didn’t avoid the question the previous day because he didn’t want to answer it. He was just really taken aback by Kenma even bringing it back, now given what had just happened answering the question wasn’t gonna smooth things over. Whatever.

   “Short answer, no I don’t do that anymore.” He couldn’t even look in Kenma’s direction.

    Kenma felt extremely hurt and right then he remembered why. “But…you promised me.”

   “I know I did it’s just…times change. 178 years is a long time to keep a promise.”

   178 years…hearing out loud how long it had been since everything had happened was pretty surreal to hear. Sudden mixed emotions began to bubble in the stunned hunter. He felt completely out of Hinata’s league considering he was 20 and Hinata had to be at least 200 years old, but then he started to feel extremely old too. How long could you hold on to memories? Why the hell now was any of this happening? Kenma plopped down on the chair by the desk, head in his arms. Not for the first time he felt overwhelmed by everything, but what was worse about it was that he felt hurt from some 178 year old broken promise. He knew life wasn’t fair, but come on. Hinata, still weary of Kenma being on edge, spoke up while slowly moving over to his side.

   “I know I can’t justify this to you but, let me explain. You were killed, and it wasn’t a vampire who did it Kenma! Your own brother, a human, shot you and I couldn’t do anything because I had to go help my family when my home was attacked by humans. I’m sorry if I lost the value for human life when I thought you were dead!” He was trying to keep emotion out of his voice, but he was never good at that. If he could cry, tears would have been in the corners of his eyes.

   “…It’s hard to go back to that point…but God knows how badly I want to. I didn’t like it, but over time it just became the norm for me…I’m sorry.”

    Kenma looked over towards Hinata. He was way closer than any other time he had been in the dorm, but he didn’t make any move push him away. He really hoped it was fatigue that made him let Hinata be that close, and not that he believed the sincerity in his voice. He really hoped it wasn’t that.

  “Am I supposed to forgive you?” Kenma wanted it to sound like a scathing remark, it didn’t though. He was truly asking if he should forgive Hinata because his conflicting feelings made him lost.

   “…I wouldn’t want you to this easily. You deserve to be pissed at me. I mean a good majority of this is my fault you know." He smiled sadly. Kenma began to notice he wasn’t the only person who didn’t like Hinata very much. Looking at things from a vampire’s perspective, that was a whole new low for Kenma, but he did it anyway. Sure these memories weren’t the easiest thing to deal with, but Hinata had to deal with not only watching a close person to him die, he now had to get their reincarnated form to remember everything…with really nothing in return. On top of that he had to live with the idea that it was his fault they died in the first place. 178 years is an extremely long time to live with guilt over a person. 178 years is an extremely long time to be devoted to one person. Since Kenma was still on the unpredictable side, he did something even crazier than thinking from Hinata’s point of view. He hugged him.

    Hinata couldn’t even register it. His arms never moved to return the hug, but Kenma was definitely hugging him. Why? He had no fucking clue, but he felt way better than he had in the last few days.

   “Uh…you know you’re hugging me right?”

    Kenma made a noise of acknowledgment and slowly broke away. His face felt 20 degrees warmer but that was beside the point.

   “…I forget how much you had to go through, and it’s not fair for me to always make you feel bad about this. You’re only trying to help…so take that as you know, an apology or whatever.” That was true, but dammit there were other reasons Kenma wanted to hug Hinata, and he was not about to open his mouth and say any of those things. Inexplicable feelings are not good to act on, but if you have a valid excuse why not.

  “I don’t forgive you…but I’m willing to listen and maybe I could.”

   Hinata still hadn’t moved much since the hug and that other bit shocked him even more. He slowly took a breath, even though it was completely unnecessary, and regained some composure. What could he say to that? Kenma decided to lead the conversation when sudden pictures began to flash in his head.

   “I remember…when I went with you to see you feed…but I don’t really understand why I did.”

   Finally aware that he needed to speak, Hinata sat down on the floor and began to explain the story.

  “Well it’s a loaded story actually, but it is pretty important. The village you lived in was full of vampire hunters, shocking I know. There was rumor about a group of vampires had moved into the forest nearby it and yeah it was true and people were getting really freaked out when people turned up dead. They were right to assume the vampires in the forest were doing it, but it was another vampire who had nothing to do with the group doing it. It’s sort of confusing, but that’s what happened. To save you the trouble of guessing who was part of this group of vampires in the forest, it was me and my family.“He grinned and paused to let the story sink in a bit.

   “One night, right before I have the chance of feeding…you showed up and pointed a gun at me,” Hinata laughed at the fact the gun pointing thing still happened even now,” and I think the only reason you didn’t hurt was because shielded my face with my hands. Like what exactly is that gonna do to save me from getting shot by a silver bullet? I guess you thought it was unusual for a vampire to do that instead of running or trying to attack you.”

    A good majority of the story was vague, but some fuzzy images began to fill Kenma’s head. He could see someone standing across a field from him with their hands covering their face. He laughed from how strange they looked.

   “You actually listened to what I had to say, and then you said because you didn’t want me to roam around without someone looking after what I was doing…so you followed me around. I think about after two weeks you asked to see how I hunted because I wanted to prove to you it wasn’t me or any of the other vampires killing the people in your village. So I took you.” It was pretty straightforward. The memories from earlier that morning fell into place and other pictures rapidly followed them. His head didn’t hurt when the memories came to him, but he did feel a little dizzy. Hinata watched him closely, wondering what things were currently going through Kenma’s mind. There were other things he wanted to tell him in more detail, but overloading him probably was not the best idea. He stood up and gingerly placed his hand on Kenma’s shoulder which suddenly broke him out of the fog in his head.

  “I think that may be good for now…so I’ll be going now.” His hand was still on his shoulder and Kenma left it there.

  “Ok, I guess I’ll see you later Hinata.” He even said his name. Hinata paused and looked over his shoulder before he left. Kenma suddenly sat up and called out something he probably was going to regret. “Um…I have enough animosity towards you for the both of us so maybe…you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, you know.”

   Hinata stared at him and smirked that stupid annoying smirk that Kenma hated, well he hated the way it made him feel, and he left the dorm. Not really having the energy to move to his bed, Kenma let his head fall back on to his arms and his eyes closed. He really needed to consider to stop talking while he was ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awkward hugs are the best hugs


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter did not want to be written at all~

_They were moving through the forest leisurely, talking quietly._

_“You are quite different from what I expected a vampire to be._

_” “What were you thinking I would appear to be? Some sort of vicious monster?”_

_He pauses, “Well, yes actually…” his voice trails off._

_The other looks towards him, a soft expression on his face, “You are not the only one Tetsurou.”_

_They abruptly stop and he stares at him fiercely, “You are not a monster! You’ve never hurt or killed anybody…while the rest of your kind I cannot speak for, you are definitely not a monster Shouyou.”_

_“You treat me as such, but I still have the potential to hurt or to kill..so-“_

_“How can I convince you of this!?” He reaches out and grabs the other by their shoulders, making them look him in the eyes.“Perhaps…if you…”_

_“If I what?”_

_He gazes intently trying to convey his words without saying them. They catch on and they hastily step away._

_“No, I refuse to do that to you Tetsurou…”_

_“You have done it, I have even witnessed it myself!” He assures._

_“…What if this time I do not stop? What if I hurt you? This is different from a casual feeding Tetsurou…this is you. I could not forgive myself I hurt you!”_

_He moves closer, “Then don’t…”_

   Kenma’s eyes snapped open. Another memory, and it was completely vivid this time. He doesn’t sit up all the way in his bed, but he dragged himself to his elbows. Any other time his memories would be somewhat complete, this particular one unfortunately, stopped way short of something important. He slumped back down in the covers, hands over his eyes. What was going on? What exactly was he trying to get Hinata to do? Kenma tried as hard as possible to re-call any small detail that could help him out, but as usual the images and words were slipping away. They weren’t completely gone, but they were extremely hazy to pick out anything specific. These damn memories had been doing that fading junk everytime Kenma had dreamed about them, and he was getting fed up with it. A sudden bit of rage came over him, and he threw his pillow across the dorm, landing with a soft thud against the door. He huffed out a frustrated sigh. There was really only one person he could talk to, but that irritating punk wouldn’t be there until at least sundown. To his utter distress, his tiny alarm clock only read 9:05 A.M.

   “…Dammit…”

    Kenma begrudgingly got up and went to class, not that he learned anything. The memory preoccupied any of his available attention so whatever his professor, for whatever class, was going on about, Kenma retained none of it. He figured being out and irritated was slightly better than being in his dorm and irritated. There were less breakable things and more room to move outside than there were in his room. He even spent a majority of his time outside, despite it being so cold that he could see his breath. Kenma just really hated being this antsy over those memories, and he felt like crying he was just so overwhelmed at the moment. A small buzz in his pocket shook him out of his thoughts for a brief second. It was a phone call from Kuroo. As annoying as he got, sometimes he definitely was a life-saver.

    “Hello?” He said sounding way shakier than he wanted to.

    “Hey…are you alright man? You sound off.”

    Kenma wanted nothing more than to pour out everything that was bothering him, but he knew there were serious issues with doing that, but he couldn’t really lie about it. Not right now.

    “…I feel like I’m losing it just a bit. There’s just a lot I wanna know but it keeps slipping away before I can even work it out! I-I just…,” he swallowed, “…want to understand what’s going on.”

    He could hear Kuroo breathing on the other end of the phone, taking in everything he said.

   “I really can’t say I get what you’re going through honestly…and it sounds like a _shit-ton_ more than what it was before, but if you try to be open-minded about it and just let the memories come, you know and not fight them off…maybe it could help?” He tried to sound as reassuring as possible.

   “I mean… they just come to me anyways and they just vanish before I can really know what happened to me in the past…”

   “Maybe you should try thinking about them as things that happened to you, as in you now. Not a past self, but yourself. It could be like, you’re disconnecting yourself from everything and it could be why it’s bothering you so much.”

   Kenma considered his words for a moment. Everything he said made sense, but if he did that, he would have to accept those things…he would have to accept that Hinata was a part of his life, and he was completely unsure of how that made him feel. Whenever they talked in his room about the past, the feeling of familiarity he got from it all almost made Kenma feel like he wasn’t in his own body. He was just a shell that the past person, Tetsurou, was speaking and acting through. He wasn’t Tetsurou anymore. He was Kenma, but acknowledging that Tetsurou was, and is a part of who he was now…maybe it could help. He was discussing his previous life with a vampire so honestly nothing at that point sounded ridiculous.

   “I guess…I mean what else can I really do?” Kenma scoffed.

   “Yeah. I mean it’s not like there’s anyone around to like tell you in full what happened, right?”

   Kenma’s stomach dropped and he almost dropped his phone. Kuroo was good at figuring stuff out, but there was no way he knew about Hinata…he hoped that. Without missing a beat, Kenma answered back.

   “That would make things so much easier…well I guess I’ll see you later.” Hopefully he sounded normal enough for Kuroo to not even think of his previous comment.

   “Yup. Oh! I was calling actually to if you wanted to try to scout out the area again, maybe tomorrow if possible?”

   “Yeah.” He answered quickly.

   “Well hopefully this stuff gets sorted out with you, you’re kinda starting to worry me!” He chuckled a bit, but Kenma could tell he’s being serious. He hopes it can get sorted out too. He hangs up feeling much lighter than he had been all morning and Kenma slowly realized just how cold it was outside and how much he freaking hated the cold. He headed back to his dorm and felt that he could handle being there until it got late.

   Kenma worked on his homework and actually finished it with a decent grade. For the rest of the day he lounged on his bed either playing games on his phone or listening to music. He got so absorbed in it, he was completely unaware of a figure tapping on the window. Sure Hinata could open window whenever, but he wanted to see if Kenma would do it. After 5 minutes of just sitting on the branch outside of the room, Kenma finally looked his way and opened the window letting Hinata crawl in. It was a small thing, but Hinata had a goofy grin plastered to his face. He sat at the desk and expected Kenma to greet with the same coldness he was used to, but he looked relieved to see him. That was new, and strange to see. Kenma sat across from him on the bed and glanced at him for a moment, he exhaled a shaky breath.

   “I wanted to say something I guess, before we start.”

   “I’m listening.” Hinata said, fully focused on his words.

   “Whenever you’d tell me stuff from the past, I would just listen and I could see the pictures in my mind…and they always overwhelm me. I think I sort of get why it happens that way.” Kenma peered up at Hinata to stare directly in his eyes. “Despite everything that’s happened, it doesn’t feel real…like I can’t believe it was real and that it happened to me. I just reject it…you so much it’s like the memories just go in and out so fast and never stick…I want them to stick though.”

   Hinata’s eyes widened.

   “…I mean you know, so I can understand them and live with them versus ignoring them and the memories messing up my head. I have to accept who I was…that Tetsurou is a part of me. That’s all I wanted to say.” He whispered while drawing his knees to his chest.

   “Well, that’s really insightful…I hope that can help you out more.” A genuine smile clung to his features. It was relieving to see that if necessary Kenma could help himself with the memories too. He accepting his past-self also gave Hinata a tiny sliver of hope that he could accept him too, but one step at a time.

    They sat in silence for a moment until Kenma remembered the whole reason he was anxious to see Hinata in the first place.

   “I had another new memory, but I can’t really remember a lot things from it…but there was something I was trying to convince you of doing, and I woke up before I could find out what was happening. I know it that isn’t much…but that’s all I got.”

   Hinata pondered his words and nothing jumped out to him right away. He rubbed his head a bit but nothing came to him.

   “Uhhh…you got anything else because I’ve got nothing!”

   A sudden image of Hinata stepping back quickly popped into Kenma’s mind.

   “Whatever I asked you to do, you didn’t want to do it all. It was as if you were…afraid of doing it.”

   Hinata hummed to help him think. What would Hinata be afraid of doing? Sure there were impractical things that bothered him, like spiders, but he doubted that whatever Kenma was trying to remember had anything to with that. He thought of other practical things that terrified him, and one in particular stood out. He was afraid of hurting Kenma. There was only one memory he was talking about, and Hinata was not about to bring it up again. The thought itself must have made his face change to something weird because Kenma had to point it out.

   “Did you think of it?”

   “…No.” He needed to work on his lying.

   “Come on just tell me, it can’t be that bad.”

   Hinata stood up and walked over to the window and rested his head against the pane. “It isn’t…but it’s just a little uncomfortable to talk about, at least for me.” He decided to just throw it out there, it really couldn’t turn out bad. “You asked me to bite you.”

   Kenma’s mouth hung open for a moment. He had asked a vampire to bite him. Surely he didn’t though, right? The way Hinata was acting didn’t make Kenma feel like that was what happened. He lost his ability to form coherent sentences and sat there. Taking it as his queue to explain, Hinata placed his hands on the sill and faced Kenma.

   “You were trying to convince me that I wasn’t a monster. If I could bite you and restrain myself from killing you would prove it. To me, that was the dumbest and most reckless thing you had ever asked me to do…so that’s why I refused.” He hoped that would be good enough for Kenma without giving too much away.

    “You ‘ _refused_ ’? Like you just didn’t do it…or did you?” He pressed.

   Hinata looked away. Did Kenma have to be really good at reading people, because this wasn’t fair. He looked all over the room to avoid Kenma’s piercing gaze. His resolve was breaking as the seconds passed by. He couldn’t take it anymore and he practically yelled his response.

   “I bit you alright! You wouldn’t stop until I bit you so I did.” Came his flustered answer. “Can we move past this now please?”

   Of course Kenma was interested now. Hinata seemed upset…and embarrassed for once. He needed to hear the whole story.

   “Well, that’s not what killed me…so why is it such a big deal?”

   He seemed even more flustered than before. If he could’ve blushed, Kenma swore that Hinata’s face would have been as red as a tomato. He awkwardly sighed and tried to explain.

   “It’s not just that I was worried about hurting you, it’s just that…it’s uh a little personal what we did is all.”

   “Meaning what?” Kenma was going to get him to tell him in full. He may have been enjoying watching Hinata squirm a bit…just a tiny bit.

    “Ugh…you’re really gonna make me say it aren’t you? A human asking a vampire to bite them is on par with asking for…a kiss.” He was completely avoiding Kenma’s face which was in utter shock over Hinata’s words.

    “…How does that even make sense!?” Kenma cried.

    “Ok think about it. Whenever I used to feed, the person would be unconscious and I would just do it and go. You not only _asked_ me, you were _awake_. It’s an intimacy thing…” He mumbled. 

    “So I trusted you enough…to let you do that?”

    “…Yeah. I don’t like talking about because of it is a really personal thing to me. That point changed everything between us. After that…we were more than friends.” His voice trailed off. He knew Kenma didn’t like to hear about that subject, but for some reason he just sat there instead of insisting how that was never going to happen. The quiet drew on and Hinata became extremely frigidity.

   “Well anything else you wanna ask?”

   Kenma sat there slightly loving how flustered the vampire was at the moment, but he tried to recall the dream to see if the pieces would fall into place. Blurry pictures began race in his head to the point where he could almost feel a slight stinging sensation in his neck. He jumped a bit and Hinata’s gaze fell on him, confused.

   “Hey, are you alright?” His sudden concern pushing away his flustered feelings.

   “More or less…” Kenma winced.

   The memory was there, but at the same time it wasn’t. He tried relaxing so the images would just flow through but nothing was happening. His feelings of frustration were coming back with a greater fervor and with them, an even larger feeling of hopelessness. It just wasn’t enough, but what more could Hinata do to help him? Desperation was staring to set into Kenma’s chest and a definitely insane idea followed with it.

   “Maybe re-creating the feeling could re-create the memory…” Kenma was completely immersed in his idea that he completely missed he said that out-loud, and Hinata heard all of it.

   “What?” He almost hissed out. After him telling the embarrassingly uncomfortable story he had the nerve to even insinuate that they’d try it again. He was angry, but he was more terrified than anything.

   “Well…maybe if you bit me—“

   “No.” There was no room for argument. It was not going to happen.

   “Ok, but hear me out for a minute—“

   “No Kenma. Are you listening to yourself? This is ridiculous!”

   Kenma was starting to get irritated after getting cut off twice by the vampire. He was the one who needed help and he was determined to get it, by any means.

   “Didn’t you say you’d help me? Didn’t you say that all you wanted to do was make me happy? Well this will do it Hinata!”

   Hinata turned away from him. He was right, but this was a step too far. This sort of manipulation wasn’t going to work against him, no matter if he wanted Kenma to be “happy” or not. First and foremost, he wanted Kenma safe and this was a huge turn away from being safe. He tried to calmly answer him, but his voice was still wavering when he spoke.

   “I did say I’d help you, but Kenma is this really going to help you?” He looked over his shoulder at him. “Think about this rationally for a moment. Let’s say I do bite you, what happens if I can’t stop myself? This time it’s entirely different because it’s been 178 years since I’ve stopped while feeding…I could kill you. “

   Kenma heard that part. It was kinda pointless to do that and end up dead…not to mention he’d feel partially guilty for all of the things Hinata would go through afterwards. He was just so tired of running into dead ends. Even when he felt like he’d made some sort of progress, he’d forget most of it and it just end up going nowhere. A long sigh passed through him and he slumped down on the bed palms over his eyes.

   Of course it upset Hinata to see him like this. He was supposed to help him, but hurting him wasn’t going to do anything and he really didn’t want to entertain the idea of biting Kenma for too long or he might just do it. He sat there looking at Kenma, just staring not really sure what to do. He wasn’t sure how much good it would’ve done but he started to tell Kenma the whole story.

   “You know…it took a while even then to convince me to do it.”

   Kenma still just laid there.

   “When I finally did do it, I was terrified. You were really dizzy for a bit and I thought maybe I overdid it but the look you gave me afterwards made me feel instantly better…like it was worth it.”

    Hinata felt emotion well up in his throat and stopped to find his voice again.

    “…I actually believed what you said about me not being a monster.” He smiled for a moment and then his face completely soured.

    “If I bit you now…and something happened…if I couldn’t stop I don’t know how I would ever believe that again.”

    Kenma hadn’t moved but he heard Hinata. He didn’t want him to feel like that honestly and every rational part of his mind knew that it the worst idea that he ever came up with, but there was something he couldn’t let go of and that’s why he didn’t stop asking. Maybe it was that he trusted the vampire next to him not to hurt him, no matter how much he would deny that. He slowly sat up and glanced at Hinata.

    “I know that this is reckless…but what other choices do I really have? Please…”

    Kenma hadn’t realized there were tears running down his face until he felt a hand wiping them away. The hand stayed and lifted his chin to look at the other sitting across from him. Hinata looked extremely apprehensive but after a long sigh he whispered.

   “Ok.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I did not think it would be this long since I updated this...and it wasn't that gave up it was just that trying to word out this chapter was waaaay more difficult than I thought. I probably re-wrote it entirely at least 4 times...and I like it now kinda but yeah  
> (sorry about the cliffhanger tho...that is definitely me being lazy/evil)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooooow I did not think I would just like disappear from writing this for like 5 months...my mind just did not want to work while writing this, but I worked through it annnd now here's a new chapter! (That is pretty long so prepare yourselves)

   The word “Ok” resonated in Kenma’s head over and over. He blinked to get the remaining tears out of his eyes and stared back at the vampire across from him. He had actually said yes to biting him. A wave of relief came over him, until he realized the gravity of the situation. Kenma had just asked a vampire to bite him. His breath caught in his throat, was he really about to go through with this? He could definitely back out, but it would just leave him where he’s been. Hinata sensed his uncertainty.

   “You don’t have to do this Kenma.” His voice was barely a whisper.

    Kenma took a breath and looked down. He was terrified, but he needed to do this. These memories had to stick. He couldn’t be left with them messing with his head anymore. Even though this wasn’t a surefire way to guarantee that, he was willing to try anything…no matter how daunting it seemed. He found his voice.

    “…It may not make any sense to you why I have to do this, but if there’s any chance for me to understand my past life…I’ll do anything.”

    Hinata sighed again. There was no way of talking him out of this. He honestly could understand Kenma’s point of view, but he absolutely hated how Kenma was putting his life at risk. The only thing he figured he could do was try to make this as comfortable as possible for Kenma, and himself. Being nervous wasn’t going to do either of them any good, so before he moved forward he closed his eyes and inhaled a huge amount of air and held it for a moment.

 _“You won’t hurt him. You would never hurt him. You can stop when you want to.”_ He repeated in his mind constantly.

    While Hinata was chanting his silent mantra, Kenma watched him. He wasn’t afraid of Hinata, well not as much as he used to be anyway, so there shouldn’t be a huge problem with this right? He could tell his head that forever, but his nerves refused to listen. His heart was fluttering and his stomach was clenching anxiously. It looked like Hinata was trying to calm himself, maybe he should try to calm down as well. He tried to slowly breathe in and out, but all that made him do was hyperventilate. Hinata’s eyes opened at the sound of the distressed breathing. He gently reached over and grabbed Kenma’s hands. The quick breathing stopped, but now he could feel his constant trembling.

    “Sitting here forever will only make this worse…maybe just getting this over with now would be better for both of us.”

    Kenma’s head jerkily shook up and down. He wasn’t sure what he should do but he agreed with Hinata, just sitting there was only going to make him more nervous.

   “Ok so uh…tilt your head that way.” He awkwardly instructed.

   Hinata cautiously inched closer while Kenma moved his head revealing his pale neck to the vampire across from him. A funny thought crossed his mind.

   “You know at one point I did say you could kill me whenever you got tired of me…well now’s a good time if any."

   Despite the current situation, Kenma had to laugh. It was a tiny chuckle but it eased some of the tension he felt in his chest.

   “If my knife were anywhere near me I would, if you got too carried away I mean.” He mumbled.

   Hinata’s face turned serious for a moment.

   “If you can stop me don’t hesitate…do it. And I do mean kill me.”

    Kenma didn’t want to think it would come to that. Somewhere inside of him he knew that wasn’t going to happen. A gentle squeeze to Hinata’s hand helped convey his unvoiced thoughts. They were both going to be fine. With all of the talking done, Hinata’s face began to lean towards his neck. Out of the corner of Kenma’s eye he could see the sharpness of the approaching vampire’s fangs. He quickly snapped his eyes shut. If he stared for too long he would’ve pushed him away. He could do this. This was going to happen.

   Even without touching Kenma’s flesh he could feel his pulse beating wildly. It made him more nervous than he already was. The heat radiating from his skin definitely alarmed Hinata. A dangerously sick thought crept into his mind.

_“He smells really good.”_

   No.NO.Stop. He wasn’t some bloodthirsty brute. He was not a monster. The person who told him that all those years ago was sitting in front of him so vulnerable and no way in hell was he going to kill him. Despite Kenma never saying it out loud, there had to be some trust between them for him to let Hinata do this. He was going to show him that he could trust him as he is now, just like Hinata was before. His mouth reached its target and he bit down.

   The initial shock of pain made Kenma gasp, but it wasn’t the feeling of blood being drained that made him feel lightheaded. Pictures began to fly around his head rapidly. At first he couldn’t depict any of the scenes but soon they quickly fell in to place one by one. He saw Hinata and his past self walking in the forest. He saw them together in a small room and they appeared to be sleeping. He was somewhat holding the vampire close to his chest. Next he saw himself in a room full of people and he was franticly trying to explain something. He could feel his throat growing hoarse from the shouting he was doing. He was then running, looking for the orange haired vampire. When he found him, he crashed into his arms upset and shaking. He could hear the heavy footsteps of someone following them. Hinata began to drag him along. They ran and Kenma clung onto Hinata’s hand for dear life. The clearing he had seen countless times in his dreams came into view. They stopped running and that’s when Kenma begged for the assailant to leave and let Hinata run. They took aim and Kenma shoved Hinata out of the way. When the bullet hit his chest is when his eyes popped open and Hinata broke away from him, startled. Hinata covered his mouth. The last thing Kenma needed to see was his blood all over his lips. He hesitantly moved to the hunter.

   “Kenma…are you ok?”

   “I saw it. I saw everything,” were the only words that fell from his mouth.

   Hinata looked over him a bit. His skin was slightly flushed with sweat and a fraction bit paler than it usually was. Two red droplets alerted Hinata to something important. He forgot to seal the wound. Kenma’s loud gasp and shallow breaths scared him before him got to. It needed to be sealed so it wouldn’t scar, but he wasn’t sure how Kenma would react to the vampire coming into contact with him soon after the trauma he just experienced. He edged slowly towards him.

   “I need to close the holes…just stay still ok.” He warned. Unbeknownst to him, Kenma was still in a foggy mindset and hadn’t heard a word he said.

   Hinata gently positioned Kenma’s head so he could fully see the wound. Two perfectly round holes were bright red with fresh blood. He drew his tongue back and forth over the spots until the skin closed up. When he looked again the holes were gone and no traces of the bite were visible on Kenma’s light skin. The cold and wet sensation on his neck broke him out his stupor.

   “Eww…what the hell are you doing?!”

   The vampire pulled away, a relieved smile on his face.

   “Thank God you’re ok. I was kinda worried for a moment!” The laughter in his voice and his slumped shoulders made Kenma realize the ordeal was over.

   “That doesn’t explain what that was just now you pervert.” He grumbled and he began to absentmindedly rub his neck. When his fingers pressed over the freshly healed wound, he winced and memories shot through his mind once more. Hinata’s eyes were on him once again, concerned.

   “You sure you’re ok?” His voice sounded a bit frantic.

   He hadn’t realized it but his breathing was haggard and his vision wavered. His hands moved behind him to keep himself from collapsing on the bed. He experimentally touched the spot again, and the memories flashed through once more. They hadn’t disappeared…he could remember. It worked. The most outrageous plan he could have thought of worked. He should’ve felt overjoyed, but an overwhelming amount of guilt came crashing through the good mood. He looked over at Hinata who was waiting to see if Kenma was alright.

   “Hinata…it was my fault.” He whispered.

   “What?” Of all the things Kenma might have said…that was not one he was expecting.

   “It was me who told my family about you and where the rest of the vampires were living! I’m the reason they found where you lived…I’m the reason they attacked…I’m the reason…the reason your mother was killed.” His voice grew quieter as he spoke.

   Oh. He was somewhat happy he gained his memories back, but why these specific ones now? He noticed that Kenma was shaking again. It probably wasn’t a great idea, but he felt like Kenma needed it. He reached out and grabbed his face between his hands.

   “Hey, look at me. Kenma look at me!” He gently shook his head to get him focus his eyes on him. Kenma resisted for a moment until he heard the urgency in his voice.

   “That was in the past. It’s over now ok? Don’t do this to yourself. You don’t need 178 years of guilt on your mind right now, alright?”

   “But if it wasn’t for me you-“

   “It’s not all of your fault! Who do you think told you where my home was in the first place? It’s over and done and us beating ourselves over it isn’t going to change anything.” He sighed.

   “You getting your memories back wasn’t to make you feel bad for things that happened back then…they were to make you _understand what happened_. To know what happened. So you could move past it. I being here I guess may make you feel guilty over what happened, but I don’t want that. I just want you to be happy…that’s all.” He exhaled and dropped his hands. Hopefully some of that got through to Kenma. With everything crashing into his mind so suddenly, it was so fresh in his mind and it was sort of like ripping off a Band-Aid. His mind was temporarily sealed but now it was all open and painful to deal with all at once.

    Kenma stared at Hinata but then he looked down at his hands. He got that everything happened centuries ago but he couldn’t get over it so quickly. Had this been what Hinata felt for so long? Maybe five minutes had gone by and he was struggling to get through it. He felt the bed get lighter and he noticed that Hinata was near the window.

   “Maybe I should go…being here might make this worse for you.”

   “Wait!” That was the last thing he wanted was to be alone with these remorseful memories. He wanted him to stay, but asking that was easier said than done. He only got one word out.

   “…Stay.”

    Hinata slowly moved back to the bed and sat on the edge. A great deal of space was between the two. Even though some of his blood had been sucked out of him earlier, he had enough to fill his cheeks. His voice was practically inaudible.

   “I’m not very good at talking about stuff like this…”

   “To be fair most people don’t have their memories from past lives to talk about.” He joked.

   Kenma rolled his eyes. Predictable…any serious situation and Hinata could joke about it. He liked that about him, but now wasn’t the time to point out things he admired about the vampire (because there were a lot).

   “I meant…feelings and junk. Hearing you talk about the past got me to remember things…and maybe me talking about what I remember know could help me now.”

   Hinata liked the idea honestly. There was a ton of things to get through though.

   “Where do you wanna start?” Hinata inquired.

   That was sort of a loaded question. The hunter had seen so many different moments and he honestly wanted to talk about all of them, but there was one prominent one that he was partially curious (and slightly embarrassed about).

   “Well…there was this thing that I think that happened right after you bit me. I wanted you to come back to my house for a while because I was tired, but you wanted to make sure I was completely ok before you left…but you kinda ended up staying until dawn.” His face flushed more.

   “Oh, that. I wasn’t going to leave unless you were 100% fine, and you really weren’t so of course I stayed!” Hinata grinned to himself over the memory. Maybe Kenma had been fine after the first thirty minutes, but he wanted to be sure.

   “I guess why it sticks out to me is because, you slept in my bed with me…and I was sort of holding you.”

   “Sort of nothing, you were holding me. Don’t lie, I was there!” Hinata interrupted with his smugness bubbling through as usual. Kenma ignored him, even though he was right.

   “Anyways, I know why you were there, but the reason we were like that is still a little fuzzy.”

   Hinata looked at his hands for a moment before he spoke.

   “I…uh well it’s because I wanted to remember what a heartbeat sounded like…” He mumbled. Kenma gave him a really strange glance.

   “How do you forget?”

   “Being undead for a while without hearing it in your own body.” The remark came out snarkier than intended, but to Hinata it was sort of obvious and Kenma suddenly felt more of a jerk.

   “Oh…so I was holding you because you wanted to hear my heartbeat?” Just he saying it made heat spread through his face. His past self was chalk-full of embarrassing moments. Hinata was still smiling softy to himself.

   “Yeah. I got so relaxed I just fell asleep.”

   The sudden urge to scoot closer to the short vampire came through Kenma. He felt weird to admit how cute that was to remember Hinata cuddled up to him calm and sleeping. He wasn’t as bad as Kenma tried to make him and honestly after gaining his memory, he still felt the weight of his guilt dragging him down. Maybe there was something he could do to make up for it, despite the embarrassment keeping his mouth clamped shut. To hell with it. He’d been bitten by a vampire tonight, there wasn’t much else more terrifying than that.

   “Do you….” His weak voice died out.

   “Do I what?” Hinata asked.

   He inhaled quickly and sort of blurted it out, “Doyouwantmetoholdyouagain?” Smooth.

   And Hinata couldn’t just answer yes, because of course he heard him, he had to get the most superior looking smirk and ask again.

   “ _What?_ A vampire hunter just asked me, an actual vampire, to do what?”

   In the back of Kenma’s head, he couldn’t believe he asked that either, but it was out there. Hinata laughed for a bit before he gave the hunter a genuine smile. Despite it sounding very odd, it was sweet of him to offer. As long as he didn’t make him uncomfortable, Hinata said yes.

   “If that’s what you want to do, then sure.”

   Kenma slid closer to his pillow to allow the other to move completely on the bed. Once it shifted under Hinata’s weight, he realized how awkward this was about to be. He tried to lay back easily, but his hand slipped and Kenma flopped backward. This was off to a lovely start. Small puffs of laughter made Kenma turn away completely from the vampire. It went silent a moment later. At least he understood laughing was mildly inappropriate…mildly. Kenma rolled on to his back and Hinata sort of hovered over him for a second, unsure of what to do.

   “You’re 100% certain you don’t mind me doing this?” His voice wavered a bit. He was just as nervous, if not more, like Kenma.

   “As long as you don’t do anything weird…it’s ok.”

   Hinata lowered his body and angled himself to where only his head laying on Kenma’s chest, right over his heart. He fidgeted a bit to find a good way to get comfortable before hesitantly draping his arm over the hunter’s shoulder. He was sure Hinata could hear how wilding his heart was beating and he tried really hard to relax.

   “Geez do I make you this nervous?”

   “…Kinda, it’s different is all. It’s not bad…just different.” He meant that. Kenma felt torn, he was basically cuddling his sworn enemy and secretly enjoying it at the same time. He getting to re-know Hinata was like that and it was horribly confusing to want hate him, but after remembering everything knowing there was no way he could. His arms slowly wrapped around him and he rested his chin on his head. He was shivering and he was way out of his comfort zone, but Kenma wanted Hinata to understand his feelings for him, no matter how strange they were.

   Hinata was shocked but he felt so relaxed. The constant thumping of Kenma’s heart calmed him to the point where his eyes slid closed. He drew himself closer in the embrace. He could have just sat there in silence, but Kenma began to speak up.

   “I remember that night when you stayed with me…you fell asleep and you woke up around dawn to sneak out. A few nights after that, you kept coming back to stay the night. Other times we’d just walk around and talk about whatever things until sunrise. One night…you took me to where you lived just to show me around, and then I just…just told everyone. I’m so sorry Shouyou.”

   “Kenma…it wasn’t your fault.”

   “But it was. I wasn’t trying to, when I tried explaining what was going on…it slipped out. I had no idea it would have gotten as bad as it did…and I wanted to apologize for that. I’m always going to feel guilty over that, but seeing you here, alive…for the most part, I feel better. I guess what I’m saying is that…I’m happy you’re here now. Maybe a little happier than the past.”

   For once, Hinata had nothing to say to that. Kenma’s honesty and happiness was all he could’ve ever hoped for.

   “Thank you Kenma.”

   Kenma began to whisper different stories he could re-call and Hinata laid there and listened, interjecting every once in a while with a witty comment, and he slowly drifted off. Seeing Hinata so still he figured he had fallen asleep so he drew his blanket over both of them and went to sleep. It was probably the most peaceful sleep either of them had in a while.

* * *

 

    Natsu was more irritated than usual. For the seemingly thousandth time, Shouyou had gone off to see the hunter. She threw the lifeless body she had finished feeding on to the ground. Natsu never meant to kill anybody when she fed, but while she was angry, which was practically everyday since her brother went off to see that bastard, she got careless. The last few times she had gone out to feed she had killed each person and she was getting a little worried. Multiple dead bodies meant people start investigating things…and some of those people were definitely vampire hunters.

   “Dammit…”

   She began to run in the direction of their apartment until she heard the faintest click. A moment later she was on the ground clutching her leg. When she looked down she saw a nice sized hole right above her knee. The bullet went through but not without leaving her gasping in pain. It was silver for sure, and from the stinging it had some holy water infused with it. Natsu frantically looked around for the shooter. Her vision was a little blurry from the pain and she could only smell her own blood around her. The only thing she could do was run, even on her mangled leg she had to try. She stood shakily and immediately toppled over again. The wound was healing slowly, but for the next few minutes she was stuck on the ground. Natsu lied down completely flat so the hunter pursuing her wouldn’t be able to see her. After 2 minutes her leg was a little better, but the hole was still there. She hauled herself up and began to run at top speed, probably making the wound worse. She wasn’t sure where she was running to, but the further she was, the safer she'd be.

   She saw an alleyway and darted towards it. Her foot made it through right as she felt the tug of some sort of wire. If her other leg wasn’t still screwed up she would’ve been able to breeze right through it, today she wasn’t so lucky. Her lame leg made her trip and fall and let whatever trap the wire had trigger crash directly on top of her. A bucket of water came falling from a ledge above and splashed the liquid all over her. The burning of her skin made her freeze in pain. It was a bucket of holy water. Her screeches rang out through alley as the burns began to char her skin. She heard footsteps about 50 feet away from her, she had to move. She saw a dumpster near the back of the alley and crawled with whatever strength she had left. Natsu was just small enough to fit underneath it. The burns from the water were getting more painful but she clamped her mouth shut to keep the hunter from finding her.

   “I know you’re back here somewhere bloodsucker.” The hunter whispered with an amount of smugness that made Natsu’s stomach lurch.Her hands covered her mouth keeping her from making any noise. She had never been more grateful to not have to breathe in her entire existence.

   The sounds of his shoes hitting concrete echoed of the walls and they got louder as he approached the dumpster. His feet stopped inches from her face. She began to shiver violently and she prayed hard to anybody who could help her.

   _“Please…please don’t look down…please don’t look down!”_

   She could hear the sounds of the dumpster being opened and trash being shuffled around. After what seemed like forever she heard a frustrated groan and the lid slammed shut.

    “God she’s impossible to pin down!” He sighed. Natsu begged some God to make him leave, but the hunter leaned against the dumpster for a moment. It sounded like he was pushing buttons and then she heard him talking. He was making a phone call.

    “Pick up…damn. Hey Kenma, I went on a hunt tonight by myself since you’ve out of it and I found the vampire but as usual when you’re not here…it got away. She’s wounded pretty badly so we’ve got an easy job for tomorrow night. Just giving you a head’s up.” He hung up and walked away.

    Natsu waited until her ears couldn’t pick up the sounds of his footsteps before she even blinked. When she was certain he was gone, she pulled herself free from the tiny space and whimpered. Her skin for the most part was either deep red or edging toward black and every inch of her was in covered in dirt. She tried to stand but collapsed from the pain. All she wanted to do was just lay there until everything stopped hurting, but she knew she couldn’t sit there and wait for that hunter to come back with others. Natsu used her remaining willpower to stand and began the slow painful trek to her home. About 20 minutes later, she pushed the door open and fainted in the door way. The door partially closed behind her with a trail of her blood staining the carpet underneath her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a terrible person to do this but more cliffhangers are just my thing *shrugs*

**Author's Note:**

> Well let's see if I actually finish it (believe me I will try) and next time prepare for some Hinata P.O.V


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